The present invention relates to an audio apparatus which supplies an optimum audio signal to a resident (including an aged person, a child, and a handicapped person), and particularly to an audio apparatus which makes a notification when an abnormality is detected in the body of the user.
Conventionally, a so-called stereo system is used as a home audio reproducing apparatus. In such a system, a resident sets a favorite recording medium such as a CD or a cassette tape to a playing apparatus such as a CD player or a cassette tape player connected to an amplifier, and a performance is then conducted, so that the resident listens to music or the like through loudspeakers connected to the amplifier. Such a stereo system is usually aimed at a healthy person who can enjoy a stereo performance. As required, the subject operates a remote controller or a volume knob disposed on the amplifier to conduct selection of a favorite music piece, adjustment of volume, or the like, so that the subject can enjoy music.
On the other hand, the approach of an aged society is impending. In homes, the rate of aged persons requiring home nursing is rapidly increasing. In communities, it is requested to immediately expand facilities for social welfare for aged persons.
Under such circumstances, in a home or a facility where healthy persons live together with aged persons, handicapped persons, or the like, each person goes about his daily routing according to his own leisure. Even in such a case, it is preferable that the persons can commonly enjoy music and sometimes individually enjoy music while the volume and the like are set in accordance with their respective conveniences.
Generally, the physical condition of an aged person daily changes to a larger degree than a healthy person. Therefore, aged persons are required to always monitor their own physical condition by themselves or by means of an emergency medical system or the like. An example of an emergency medical system for residents at home, particularly, aged persons is disclosed in, for example, the Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 9-22495. In the disclosed system, a resident carries on the arm a life wrist band which can measure the pulse and the heartbeat and which has an emergency button, and plural passive sensors, each having a human body sensor which monitors motion are previously disposed at plural places in the house. During the resident's daily activities, signals due to the pulse, the heartbeat, the motion of the resident, and the like are monitored by a monitor terminal via the life wrist band and the passive sensors. When an abnormality occurs, the occurrence is automatically rapidly communicating via a telephone line to a medical institution, a physician in charge, etc. When the resident senses an abnormality, the resident can press the emergency button to send an emergency signal. This signal is received by the monitor terminal, so that the abnormality is rapidly communication to an emergency facility and medical data are transferred.
Such an emergency medical system is configured so that, when the state of the resident is judged to be abnormal or when the resident feels ill, warning is given to a medical institution, a physician in charge, an emergency facility, and the like. The system is not considered to be applied to a system of another kind. When an aged person is to enjoy music by means of an audio apparatus, therefore, such a system must be separately disposed in addition to the audio apparatus. This causes the whole system to be complicated, and the cost to be increased.
Even when these systems are jointly used, an aged person cannot individually enjoy music at ease because, when the attention of a person is focused on the music, the person pays no attention to the monitoring of his own physical condition. Furthermore, the physical condition of an aged person is easily affected by the external environment such as date, a time, and weather. In some cases, when the person listens to disliked music which is selected by another resident, the pulse, the heartbeat, the blood pressure, the brain waves, the respiration rate, the body temperature, the perspiration of the resident, and the like may be caused to be largely varied.
The Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei 6-102877 discloses an audio constituting apparatus which detects input information from the external environment such as physiological data and external environment data, and produces a predetermined audio signal. The apparatus is configured so that a change of the state of the external environment received via input means such as a sensor is converted into a signal and then output; data extracting means analyzes the output signal to extract data such as the pitch and the volume; tone generator controlling means outputs tone generator control data obtained by changing attributes such as the pitch, the volume, the sound waveform functioning as the tone color, and the envelope in accordance with determined attributes on the basis of tone generator data extracted by the data extracting means; and the output signal is converted and then output as a sound via sound outputting means, so that the output sound is constituted to be completely different from the original sound. Therefore, the listener and the listening environment mutually affect each other, and the sound reproduction which is rich in contingency, unexpectedness, and interactive facility is enabled.
In such a configured audio constituting apparatus, the apparatus itself conducts sound reproduction according to preset attributes and in accordance with the external environment, and irrespective of the physical condition of an aged person. As a result, the listener cannot conduct sound reproduction corresponding to the physical condition, and hence cannot enjoy favorite audio signals (music and sounds of the natural world) in accordance with physical condition and at ease. Even when the listener who is an aged person is at any place in a room, furthermore, an audio signal of a level which is irrespective of physical condition is output. Therefore, the audio signal is sometimes hard to hear, and the volume is too high, whereby the listener often feels uncomfortable.